J. K. Stephen's Parody of Wordsworth

A Sonnet

Two voices are there: one is of the deep;

It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody,

Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,

Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep:

And one is of an old half-witted sheep

Which bleats articulate monotony,

And indicates that two and one are three,

That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep:

And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times   

Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes,

The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst:

At other times--good Lord! I'd rather be

Quite unacquainted with the ABC

Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.

-- J. K. Stephen (1859-1892)

Comments

[Laura Orem]

Here's some J.K. Stephen trivia - he was Virginia Woolf's first cousin, and had a pathological obsession with her half-sister, Stella Duckworth, at one time bursting into their house brandishing a sword-stick that he used to stab the bread on the dinner table. His behavior became more and more bizarre until finally he was carted off to a lunatic asylum, where he died, but not before being added to the list of suspects in the Jack-the-Ripper murders.

Poets are such a colorful bunch.

[DL]

Colorful, you're not kidding, LO. And how comes it that you know so much about J. K. Stephen?

[Laura Orem]

I just seem to remember weird stuff. Where I put my car keys, I couldn't tell you.